John O'Boyle/The Star-LedgerGiants CEO John Mara is a member of the NFL's competition committee and is involved at evaluating player safety issues.

John Mara probably knows this might sound like lip service, because it isn’t often that overlords in a mercenary, cash-flow cartel express any concern about such trifling matters as long-term damage or body counts.

But he sees these broken men — good men still in their 50s, indomitable men he has known since he was a kid, loyal men who served his father well — and their condition is “heartbreaking,” to use his term.

“For me, it’s a personal thing, because I grew up with these guys,” the Giants CEO said of the retired NFL players who seek restitution from a league that Mara admits has underserved them for too long. “It’s shocking to me to see guys who, when they were players, you’d say, ‘This guy is going to have a good post-football career — very smart, has his degree ...’

“And then it’s 10 years later, and he’s broke and out of work. It kills you to see that. It absolutely kills you.”

If the anguish he showed over this issue is an insincere act, this gentleman is a great loss to the theater.

He came to Newark Tuesday to speak about the encroachment of a retail monstrosity across the parking lot from MetLife Stadium, and the traffic nightmare he is certain will result from the American Dream complex operating on NFL Sundays.

Afterwards, Mara took the time to discuss what has become an American nightmare, which involves hundreds of NFL alumni who are living with the debilitation of countless collisions, with limbs that no longer work, and with traumatic brain injury.

Roughly 80 of them are presently filing lawsuits against the league, and while we cannot speak of the legal strength of these actions, even Mara knows where public sentiment will wind up by the time this plays out.

Think of it: How much longer can we be bombarded with these heart wrenching distortions of once-powerful images of American manhood — Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, Andre Waters, et al — and accept the sanctioned mayhem of a league which seems to accept self-inflicted gunshots as the only liberation from decades of pain?

For most of us, the root cause of this is fairly clear, and while Mara cannot speak of the legality of it, he isn’t ducking from accountability, either. He points out that 90 percent of the discussions among the league’s Competition Committee, on which he serves, is about player safety. But they’re still years behind studying the long-term effects of brain trauma, or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

Said Mara: “I’m on the health and safety committee, we have more medical committees looking into it. We’re just starting to gather more information about it. And I’m very confident we’re doing everything we can do right now to find out more about it.

“But the notion in these lawsuits that we knew there were long-term effects and we withheld that information is ridiculous. Is there some kind of cause and effect? I don’t know, I’ll let the medical experts tell you that; common sense would tell you that there is. But to say we knew it and withheld it, I really find that objectionable.”

Of course, his sore feelings are somewhat secondary to the pain of the NFL veteran who can’t get out of bed every morning or remember the names of his kids, and Mara knows that. He also knows the volume of such human catastrophe is growing.

“It is,” he said, with an audible exhale. “And one of the reasons why we have a lot of people joining these lawsuits is that we haven’t done a good enough job of taking care of retired players. That’s an issue we need to come to grips with. We made a good start in this last CBA (by reducing full-contact practices, etc.), and by allocating all this money to the legacy fund.”

That amount is $620 million, which is to be divided among 4,700 pensioners. Someday, maybe they’ll stop dragging their heels and get these funds to the guys who need it — or to their widows, in many cases.

“But to me, the league as a whole hasn’t done as good a job as we could have,” Mara repeated. “And I see significant improvements in the future. We still have to agree with the union on how to do this.”

One more issue related to safety: You’ve probably heard by now that Mara told Giants.com a few months back that the competition committee was looking into eliminating kickoffs entirely.

Whether this is a reaction to focus groups or the objections of the diehards on the radio chat shows is unclear, but now Mara says, “I don’t know if (eliminating kickoffs) will ever happen. But the new protocols we have about taking guys out of games if there’s any suspicion of a concussion” are doing what they were designed to do.

It’s a good start, judging by the numbers. Concussions were down 40 percent last year, according to official NFL figures — a direct result of the decision from Mara’s committee to move the kickoff to the 35 last season, which increased the touchback percentage from 16.4 to 43.6.

Less excitement? Live with it.

And you heard the man: There’s much more to be done. Some of it might be court-mandated. It wouldn’t surprise us if the cost could reach 10 figures. Either way, it should result from honorable men finally doing the right thing.

Once, at the apogee of his seven-decade career, when he embodied the power and promise of the NFL, Wellington Mara was the man they always turned to when things had to get done. At the league arrives at another crossroads, we hope it’s John Mara who enacts the necessary fixes and changes — not because he’s the Duke’s son, but because it’s personal.